Suddenly a wild cry made all shiver. It came from Louis Verger, who
had sprung upon something that lay tossed aside in a corner.
"Silence, man--on your life! Silence!" hissed Pierre de l'Hopital.
"Whatever you have found, think only of revenge and help us to it!"
"I have found him. He is dead! The fiends! The fiends!" sobbed Louis
Verger, covering a small partially charred object with the curtmantle
of which he had rapidly divested himself for the purpose.
Then it came upon those who stood on the floor of the tower that they
were in the marshal's main charnel-house. These vague forms, mostly
charred like half-burned wood, these scraps of white bone, these
little crushed skulls, were all that remained of the innocent children
who, in the freshness of their youth and beauty, had been seduced into
the fatal Castle of Machecoul.
And what wonder that an appalling terror sat on the heart and mastered
the soul of Sholto MacKim. For how did he know that he was not
treading under foot at each step the calcined fragments of the fair
body of Maud Lindesay?
Twenty sacks had been filled ready for transport, and as many more lay
folded and empty in a heap in a corner.
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